Baccara - Formation

Formation

Mayte Mateos graduated as a teacher from the Royal Spanish Academy for Arts, Drama and Dance in Madrid and then joined Spanish Television's Ballet Company. While there she met fellow performer María Mendiola. In 1976 the two women formed a singing and dancing duo (using the title Venus) and left the Ballet Company. Initially the duo's act was simply that of variety show dancers. Their first television appearance was on the Palmarés light entertainment programme and they were engaged at a nightclub in the Aragon city of Zaragoza, but their contract was cancelled when the club manager decided that they were "too elegant" for the style of show. Mateos and Mendiola relocated to the Canary Islands in search of work. Here they found that there was an audience for the performance of traditional Spanish music and dance in a form that was adapted to suit international tastes.

The duo were spotted by Leon Deane, manager of the German subsidiary of record company RCA, whilst performing flamenco dance and traditional Spanish songs for tourists (mostly German) in the Tres Islas Hotel on the island of Fuerteventura. He invited them to Hamburg in order for them to meet the 30 year old Dutch producer/composer Rolf Soja. Soja was the prime mover behind what became Baccara. He developed their stage performance and recruited their instrumental support. Mateos and Mendiola were retitled Baccara, after the name of the black rose, in reference to the women's dark Spanish appearance. Together with fellow writer Frank Dostal, Soja penned their début single "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" and most of their other 1970s hits. Recorded in Holland and released in 1977, "Yes Sir, …" proved to be a huge success, reaching the top of the charts in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, Belgium, Israel, and Switzerland, and number three in France. Later that year a self-titled album, written and produced by Soja and Dostal, was released. Soja is generally credited with the Baccara formula - consisting of breathy lyrics, lush backing, a disco beat and the striking image of two women (one dressed in black and the other in white) dancing. While drawing lightly on Spanish flamenco song and dance tradition, the formula was very much rooted in 1970s disco music. Soja's song arrangements generally used Mateos as the lead singer while Mendiola contributed with backing and refrains.

"Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" was an enormous pan-European hit and was a prime example of the phenomenon that is known as the "summer hit". The song was heard everywhere over the summer of 1977 and it is still evocative of that moment in time. It is also one of the best known examples of the Eurodisco genre :

…this mind-bending Common Market melding of foreign accents, bad diction, bizarre arrangements and lightweight production, usually top-heavy with strings